Identification of a product by the application of a printed label on the product itself or on the package in which the product is contained is an important part of marketing and of providing information to the purchaser. The label must be informative and it may be decorative to add to the appeal of the package. Among the most popular and versatile types of labels in use today are those which use a pressure sensitive adhesive and which are typically supplied to the manufacturer of the product on a release coated backing film from which the label may be stripped readily.
In some instances a sales package may be preprinted with the required information, but there are many cases in which preprinting is not practical. The addition of a label makes the packaging and identifying process more flexible and allows the use of a single type of bag or box for a number of different products, thereby reducing the manufacturer's investment in packaging materials.
One particular example of the need for flexibility is in the textile field where a variety of sizes or styles of garments, i.e. shirts, underwear, etc. are packaged in plastic bags which must be labeled differently for consumer information, store inventory information, and pricing. It is often practical to use the same type bag to hold different kinds of garments. The applying of different labels to bags of the same type and which contain different products allows the required flexibility.
In addition to the needed flexibility of being able to put different labels on the same type bag, there is also a need to apply labels on different types of bags which contain different types of product. Thus, if the same manufacturer were to package socks in a small bag and pajamas in a large bag, machine flexibility as to the position, orientation and size of both package and label is also useful. The ability to variably orient the bag and the label in relation to each other makes design and customization simpler and possibly more effective.
In the prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,968 for "LABELLING DEVICE", U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,913 for "LABELLING APPARATUS", and U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,859 for "LABELING APPARATUS" describe machines for labeling and relate to some aspects of the problem being addressed and are included herein by reference. While each of these patents teaches an aspect of handling and applying a label to a package containing a product, the present invention provides a novel machine and method for labeling automatically with several unique features.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a labeling machine which will control and position the product package to which the label is to be applied.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a machine that will reliably and automatically apply a label to a variety of different sized and shaped packages.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide a labeling machine which will place a label on a package in a variety of positions and orientations according to the design of the package.
An additional objective of the present invention is to provide a labeling machine which will adapt to and handle various sized labels.
A still further objective of the present invention is to provide a labeling machine which will control the feeding of the labels to the product package in a simple and effective manner.
The specific objectives mentioned above and others as will occur to the person skilled in the art will become apparent as the disclosure following is read.